On July 23, 2018, the UNC Program on Chinese Cities (PCC) held its first International Forum of Urban-Rural Sustainability on the campus of The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. A program of the Center for Urban and Regional Studies (CURS), PCC brought together some of the more than 250 Visiting Chinese Scholars it has hosted over the past 10 years to discuss “Urban-Rural Sustainable Development in a New Era.”
After introductory remarks by PCC Director Yan Song and a welcome from CURS Director Bill Rohe, nine presentations were made by past Visiting Scholars on topics such as rural revitalization strategies, urban space reconstruction and land use. The presentations, broken into four sessions, were moderated and discussed by fellow Visiting Chinese Scholars. On the following day, Visiting Scholars Yuzhe Wu of Zhejiang University, Xiaoping Zhou of Beijing Normal University and Hui Qian of Zhejiang University City College led a group discussion of potential future cooperative research topics with research designs and plans.
Yan Song is a professor of City and Regional Planning at UNC-Chapel Hill whose research projects address domestic and international issues related to the impetus of urbanization and urban growth, tools of low carbon and green city developments, efficacy of land and housing markets, effects of urban growth management regulations and integration of urban land use and transportation plans. The PCC was established by Song to develop an internationally-recognized research agenda to better understand the impacts of rapid metropolitan development on China’s built and natural environments. A three-part agenda guides the research activities of the PCC: documentation of China’s urbanization process; analysis of China’s urbanization policies and practices; and global implications of Chinese urbanization.
